Buying or Selling? Remember Social Media

Buying or Selling? Remember Social Media

All of the normal tips and tricks for real estate buying and selling are available just about anywhere. Buyers and sellers are advised to keep a straight face if they should meet so that you don’t give anything away.

When submitting an offer, buyers are encouraged to write an emotional cover letter, since we are all creatures of emotions, to influence the seller into accepting their offer rather than countering. This cover letter speaks to a seller’s attachment to the home they’re selling and to this offer being at the top or even a little more than they can spend but it has all of the features that the buyer is looking for so please let the buyer have it. Buyers wonder if their offer is enough or too much. Is the home they just walked through all it seems? The buyer loves the house and really wants it, was the offer enough? Will a different buyer submit a better offer? Will the seller counter for more than they can afford?

Sellers are encouraged, whenever possible to understand and know as much as they absolutely can about a buyer’s motivations. Is this buyer truly at the top of their price range? Does the seller accept the buyer’s offer? Does the seller risk the buyer walking away if they counter? How does a seller find a buyer’s true motivation?

One option that is mostly overlooked is social media. An amazing fact is that most people, especially Millennials, speak more freely with their social media posts than face to face. Sellers and buyers may be able to get a better reading on each others motivations by doing a social media search. If either the buyer or seller has not changed their default privacy settings then all of their wall posts and status updates are viewable by everyone who is not blocked, which means anyone who finds there page can read them all.

Our two take-a-ways are to make sure that your social media privacy settings are keeping casual viewers from knowing things you would rather have kept private and that social media is a great option for researching motivations for both buyers and sellers.